LAS VEGAS — Artificial intelligence took center stage at CES 2026 as AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su delivered the event's first official keynote, outlining the company's vision for an AI-powered future that reaches far beyond data centers and research labs.
"AI is the most important technology of the last 50 years, and I can say it's absolutely our number one priority at AMD," Su said Monday evening on the CES stage. "It's already touching every major industry, whether you're going to talk about health care or science or manufacturing or commerce, and we're just scratching the surface, AI is going to be everywhere over the next few years. And most importantly, AI is for everyone."
Su underscored the rapid pace of adoption with a striking comparison. Since the launch of ChatGPT, AI usage has surged from roughly one million users to more than one billion active users worldwide. According to AMD's projections, that number could exceed five billion active users in the coming years — a growth curve far steeper than the early days of the internet.
A Growing AI Gap: Demand vs. Compute Power
While AI adoption is accelerating, Su acknowledged a critical challenge: the world does not yet have enough computing power to support everything AI promises to deliver.
"We don't have nearly enough compute for all the things we want to do with AI," she said, setting the stage for AMD's broader strategy.
Rather than focusing on raw performance alone, Su emphasized the importance of tightly integrated systems — CPUs, GPUs, networking, and software — working together to scale AI infrastructure efficiently. That philosophy is embodied in AMD's Helios rack platform.
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Helios: The Weight of Modern AI Infrastructure
First revealed in 2025 and showcased again at CES, Helios is AMD's open, modular rack design built on the OCP open rack-wide standard and developed in collaboration with Meta.
"Helios is a monster of a rack," Su said. "This is no regular rack. It's a double-wide design, and it weighs nearly 7,000 pounds."
To put that into perspective, Su noted that the rack weighs more than two compact cars combined — a vivid illustration of the physical scale behind today's AI workloads. The system is designed to bring together high-performance computing, advanced accelerators, and networking in a single, scalable platform capable of supporting the next generation of AI models.
OpenAI's Greg Brockman Highlights AI's Compute Challenge
AMD CEO Lisa Su was joined on stage by Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, who reinforced a key theme of the keynote: the growing shortage of compute power.
The two briefly joked about Brockman's constant request for more compute before turning serious. Brockman said compute remains one of the biggest barriers to AI's full potential, noting that truly universal AI would require billions of GPUs — far beyond today's infrastructure.
"The world is going to require far more compute than we have right now," Brockman said, underscoring why scaling AI hardware remains a critical challenge for the industry.
Luma AI Showcases Generative Video and World Modeling
Su was later joined by Amit Jain, CEO of Luma AI, who outlined the company's ambition to build multi-modal general intelligence.
"In short, we are modeling and generating worlds," Jain said, as clips from Luma's Ray 3 model played on screen. While the visuals looked like traditional AI video, Jain said Ray 3 can generate clips in 4K and has already been pushed by some customers to produce content as long as a 90-minute feature film.
A new capability, Ray 3 Modify, allows users to edit generated and live-action clips in real time, blending AI output with human performances. Jain also demonstrated how Luma's multi-modal agent can analyze scripts and develop creative ideas, giving individual creators and small teams tools once limited to large Hollywood productions.
According to Jain, around 60% of Luma's growing inference workloads now run on AMD hardware, a partnership he believes gives the company a competitive edge. Looking ahead, he said scaling video models could help simulate real-world physical processes — even supporting advanced engineering tasks such as rocket design. Su added that AMD's next-generation MI500 EPYC CPUs are expected to deliver a 1,000x increase in AI performance over the next four years.
Liquid AI Introduces New Foundation Models
The keynote also featured Ramin Hasani, co-founder and CEO of Liquid AI, who emphasized efficiency as the next frontier of AI development.
Liquid AI is focused on building foundation models that can run across a wide range of hardware platforms. "The goal is to substantially reduce the computational cost of intelligence from first principles," Hasani said.
On stage, he announced Liquid Foundation Model 2.5, a 1.2-billion-parameter model designed for fast, agentic performance. He also previewed LFM 3, set to launch later this year, which will natively support 10 languages, enable real-time audio and visual interaction, and offer enhanced function-calling capabilities.
Together, the guest appearances reinforced AMD's central CES message: scaling AI for everyone will require not just faster hardware, but more efficient models and closer collaboration across the AI ecosystem.
World Labs Shows AI-Powered Persistent 3D Worlds
Lisa Su brought Fei-Fei Li, CEO and founder of World Labs, on stage to demonstrate how AI can transform game and world creation.
Li said World Labs focuses on giving computers human-like spatial intelligence. Using just a few images, its AI can interpret an environment's structure and generate detailed, persistent 3D worlds. In one demo, photos taken at AMD's offices were turned into a realistic 3D space complete with depth, windows, and doors, then instantly reimagined in different styles, from overgrown forests to ancient Egyptian themes.
Li also showed how the model recreated the Venetian Hotel from a small set of photos — a process she said now takes minutes instead of months. She emphasized that faster model performance enables instant camera moves and edits, making AI-generated worlds more responsive and practical for gaming, design, and simulation.
Healthcare Leaders Highlight AI's Role in Faster Drug Discovery
Lisa Su later welcomed a panel of healthcare executives to discuss how AI is reshaping medicine, featuring Sean McClain of Absci, Jacob Thaysen of Illumina, and Ola Engkvist from AstraZeneca.
Thaysen highlighted Illumina's work in genomic sequencing, describing the human genome as a 200,000-page book stored in every cell. Processing that data, he said, requires massive compute, calling AMD EPYC CPUs essential to handling workloads that rival platforms like YouTube in daily data volume. He also pointed to AI's potential beyond cosmetics, citing progress toward disease-modifying treatments for conditions such as endometriosis.
Engkvist explained that AstraZeneca trains AI models on decades of medical data to evaluate and refine experimental drugs, reducing the number of lab experiments needed and accelerating development. McClain was more blunt, calling traditional drug development "archaic" and arguing that AI enables scientists to engineer biology itself. He added that Absci's move to AMD's MI355X accelerators, with their larger memory capacity, is expected to significantly speed up discovery — particularly in underserved areas like women's health.
Together, the panel underscored how AI, paired with hyperscale computing, is becoming central to the future of healthcare innovation.
Generative Bionics Brings Physical AI and Humanoid Robotics to the Stage
Lisa Su was joined by Daniele Pucci, CEO and co-founder of Generative Bionics, to explore the emerging field of physical AI.
Pucci said Generative Bionics is building its AI platform around humanoid robots, drawing inspiration from human biomechanics. He noted that humans walk by constantly falling forward and catching themselves — a principle his team applies to robotic movement. A key focus is touch: robots need tactile awareness to interact safely and effectively with the physical world.
That philosophy was embodied by Gene.01, the company's humanoid robot, which made an appearance on stage. Described by Pucci as "Italian by design," the robot features a sleek, sports-car–inspired look and is equipped with touch sensors, including sensor-embedded shoes that provide tactile feedback. Su called the concept "super cool," highlighting how the same sensor technology can also be adapted for human patients in medical and rehabilitation settings.
While Gene.01 remained stationary during the demo, Pucci emphasized that the platform's long-term goal is to help robots better understand movement, balance, and human interaction — another example of how AI is moving beyond screens and into the physical world.
AMD and Blue Origin Spotlight AI Compute in Space Exploration
AMD highlighted its growing role in space exploration as Lisa Su welcomed John Couluris, Blue Origin's senior vice president of lunar permanence, to the CES stage.
Su said AMD technology is already powering critical space missions, including autonomous exploration on Mars with NASA's Perseverance Rover and missions studying the moons of Jupiter. According to Su, these environments demand compute platforms that can operate reliably under extreme conditions.
Couluris echoed that sentiment, explaining that space missions require highly dependable, low-power systems. He praised AMD's embedded processors for enabling Blue Origin's space equipment and noted the speed of the collaboration. Within two months of partnering with AMD, the company secured the chips needed for its next-generation flight computers.
The discussion reinforced AMD's message that advanced computing is not only driving AI on Earth but also supporting humanity's expansion into deeper space.
AMD, the White House, and Young Innovators Highlight AI's Role in Scientific Computing
Lisa shifted the keynote's focus to high-performance computing (HPC) and its growing importance in scientific research, with Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, joining on stage.
Kratsios discussed the Genesis Mission, a public-private initiative that brings together supercomputers, laboratories, scientists, and AI to accelerate scientific discovery. When asked what the United States must do to lead in AI, he pointed to President Trump's AI action plan, highlighting three priorities: reducing regulatory barriers, expanding energy capacity, and exporting American technologies. AMD, Su noted, is an active participant in the Genesis Mission, contributing computing power to advance AI-driven science.
The session concluded with a spotlight on the next generation of technologists. AMD brought the top three teams from Hack Club to CES for the first time, inviting the winning project leaders on stage. Members of the "Armtender" team — Emme McDonald, Ruzanna Gaboyan, and Afia Ava — presented their project and were each awarded a $20,000 education prize by AMD, underscoring the company's push to support future innovators in AI and computing.
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